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Bye Bye Birdie (Columbia Pictures film)
Bye Bye Birdie is a musical comedy film, it is an adaptation of the stage production of the same name. The screenplay was written by Michael Stewart and Irving Brecher, with music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Lee Adams. Directed by George Sidney, the film version starred Dick Van Dyke, Maureen Stapleton, Janet Leigh, Paul Lynde, Bobby Rydell, Ann-Margret, and Jesse Pearson, who plays the role of teen idol Conrad Birdie. It also features a cameo appearence by Ed Sullivan, who appears as himself, the host of the popular, long-running CBS TV variety show. The story was inspired by the phenomenon of popular singer Elvis Presley and his being drafted into the United States Army in 1957. Presley himself was the first choice for the role of Birdie, but his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, rejected the idea as he did not want Presley in any roles that were parodies of himself. The film is credited with making Ann-Margret a superstar during the mid-1960s, leading to her appearing with the real Elvis in Viva Las Vegas. The soundtrack was released by RCA Victor in 1964. In 2006, the film was ranked number 38 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies. Despite the film's box office success, it opened to mixed reviews, with unfavorable comparisons to the Broadway production. Some noted its mediocre production values, rewriting of the script, changes in the musical score, and disappointing choreography in some songs. The film was released in theaters on April 4, 1963. Plot Conrad Birdie, a popular rock and roll star, receives an army draft notice which is devastating his teenage fans across the nation. Albert Peterson is an unsuccessful songwriter in his family's business, although he has a doctorate in biochemistry. He schemes with his secretary and long-suffering girlfriend Rosie DeLeon to have Conrad sing a song Albert has written, but Conrad's conscription puts a halt to the plan. Rosie convinces Ed Sullivan to have Conrad sing the song "One Last Kiss" on The Ed Sullivan Show, and then kiss a randomly chosen high school girl goodbye before going off to the army. Once that is a success, Albert will feel free to marry Rosie, despite his meddlesome mother Mae's long history of ensuring nothing will come between her and her beloved son. Sweet Apple, Ohio, is chosen as the location for Conrad's farewell performance. The random lucky girl chosen is Kim MacAfee, who is thrilled. Kim already has a boyfriend, Hugo Peabody, who is not so thrilled. The teenagers of Sweet Apple, blissfully unaware of their town's impending fame, are spending time on the telephone catching up on the latest gossip: Kim and Hugo have just gotten pinned and are going steady. Kim feels grown up, and declares that she knows how it feels to be a woman. On the day Conrad arrives in town, the teenage girls sing their anthem to him, but the boys despise him for their girls' love for him. Sweet Apple becomes a very popular place, but some of the local adults are unhappy with the sudden celebrity, especially after Conrad shows off his hip-thrusting moves while his song "Honestly Sincere" causes every female and a few males to faint. Under pressure from the town's notable citizens, Mr. McAfee is unwilling to allow his daughter to kiss Conrad on television, but Albert placates him by telling him that their whole family will be on Sullivan's TV show. Albert reveals to Mr. McAfee that he is actually a biochemist who has developed a miracle supplement for domestic animals that will make a hen lay 3 eggs a day; they test it on the family's pet tortoise, which speeds off out the door. McAfee is a fertilizer salesman and he sees a great future for himself in partnership with Albert for marketing this pill. Hugo feels threatened by Conrad but Kim reassures him that he is the one boy for her, while Rosie feels like Albert does not appreciate her, so Albert persuades her to be happy. Albert's mother shows up, distressed to find Albert and Rosie together. Mr. MacAfee is also agitated, not liking the way Conrad is taking over his house. They lament what is wrong with kids these days. During rehearsal for the broadcast, an impatient Conrad kisses Kim and she faints, while Hugo is hurt over this, so he and Kim break up. Albert is told that the Russian ballet has switched to a different dance that needs extra time, therefore eliminating his song and the farewell kiss to Kim. Rosie is fed up with Albert and his mother, so she dances and flirts with a room full of men at a shriners convention. Albert rescues her from the crazed shriners. Albert does request to have the ballet shortened to at least four minutes so there will be enough time for Conrad to sing his song, but the arrogant ballet manager initially refuses to have it shortened as he believes that cutting time would mean "artistic sabotage" to such a classic piece of work. However, Rosie slips one of Albert's pills into the milk of the orchestra's conductor to speed up the ballet, which not only amuses the audience, but also offends the Russians. There is a last-minute scramble to fill air time, and Conrad does get to appear on the show and sing "One Last Kiss". Hugo interrupts the actual kiss by running onstage and knocking out Conrad on live TV. Kim and Hugo reunite and Albert is free to marry Rosie now and his mother agrees while revealing that she is now married to a widower she met the previous evening. All of the couples live happily ever after. Cast of characters Janet Leigh as Rosie DeLeon Dick Van Dyke as Albert F. Peterson Ann-Margret as Kim MacAfee Jesse Pearson as Conrad Birdie Paul Lynde as Harry MacAfee Mary LaRoche as Doris MacAfee Bryan Russell as Randolph MacAfee Maureen Stapleton as Mae Peterson Bobby Rydell as Hugo Peabody Michael Evans as Claude Paisley Robert Paige as Bob Precht Gregory Morton as Maestro Borov Ben Astar as Ballet Manager Milton Frome as Mr. Maude Ed Sullivan as himself Trudi Ames as Ursula Linda Kaye Henning as Nancy Peter Menefee as Harvey Johnson John Daly as himself Kim Darby as a teenager Song list Bye Bye, Birdie The Telephone Hour How Lovely To Be A Woman We Love You, Conrad We Hate You, Conrad Honestly Sincere Hymn For A Sunday Evening One Boy Put On A Happy Face Kids A Lot Of Livin' To Do One Last Kiss Rosie Bye Bye, Birdie Reprise Differences from the stage musical In the film, the names of the characters Albert J. Peterson and Rosie Alvarez were changed to Albert F. Peterson and Rosie DeLeon. In addition to the name change, Albert is not Conrad Birdie's agent nor an aspiring English teacher but a talented research chemist who contributed to Conrad's initial success and therefore Conrad owes him a favor. When Rosie and Albert get back together at the film's end, it is because Conrad's being a guest in Sweet Apple is over as he goes into the army, not because either character had shown any growth The story and much of the dialogue was re-written so that The Ed Sullivan Show broadcast is at the end of the movie. It is at the closing of the first act in the stage musical. In both versions, Hugo refers to Conrad as a "thief of love" and prevents the kiss by running out on stage and then punches Conrad in the face as he leans in to kiss Kim, however, the results are different. In the stage show, Kim is very upset with Hugo for punching Conrad and resolves to leave Hugo by telling him that she never wants to speak to him again, as she dashes off while he follows her. Then, she laments her stupidity for having fallen in love with him, sneaks out of the house and heads to the Ice House to party without adult supervision, and claims she was intimidated by Conrad and gladly returns to Hugo. In the film, things end on a brighter and lighter note for Hugo after he punches Conrad: he wins Kim's heart and the young couple is reunited. In the film, Conrad did not get tired of show business, but he did suffer the embarrassment of being knocked out with a single punch on live television before an audience of millions of viewers In the stage musical, a curvy blonde tap dancer named Gloria Rasputin hopes to be Albert's new secretary, while in the film, a suave English teacher named Claude Paisley flirts with Rosie In the movie, Albert's mother, Mae Peterson, is annoying and insensitive, but is not racist, like is she is in the musical In the film, Mae shows up after the Ed Sullivan Show broadcast with Charles F. Maude the bartender, and informs Albert and Rosie that she has married him In the film, Kim and Hugo perform "One Boy" in the MacAfees' back yard. In the stage musical, it is sung by a trio that is made up of Kim and two teenagers. In the movie, "Kids" was performed in the MacAfee kitchen by Mr. MacAfee, Mae, Albert, and Randolph. In the stage musical, it is performed by Mr. MacAfee, Mrs. MacAfee, Randolph, and the parents of the other teenagers in the streets of Sweet Apple. In the film, "Put On A Happy Face" is performed by Albert and Rosie in the MacAfees' back yard. In the stage musical, Albert sings it to a depressed young girl at the train station. In the movie, "A Lot Of Livin' To Do" is performed as a colorful song-and-dance number by Conrad, Kim, and Hugo at a teen dance, where Kim and Hugo trying to make each other jealous. In the stage musical, it is performed by Conrad, Kim, and all the teenagers in the streets of Sweet Apple before they head for the Ice House. In the film, "Rosie" is sung in the outdoor theatre after the end of The Ed Sullivan Show by Albert, Rosie, Hugo, and Kim. In the musical, Albert and Rosie sing it at the train station. In the stage musical, Kim is wholesome and innocent teenager, while Hugo is a nerd. In the film, Kim is a sex kitten and Hugo is a handsome teen idol. In the musical, Ed Sullivan is just a voice-over. In the film, he features in a cameo appearance as himself. The following songs were omitted from the film: An English Teacher - it went away when Albert's profession was switched to chemistry A Healthy, Normal, American Boy What Did I Ever See In Him? - it continued the relationship set up during the song One Boy Baby, Talk To Me - Albert's beautiful song pleads for Rosie's love and showed growth, but that growth never happens in the film Kids Reprise Spanish Rose - most of the song was replaced by dialogue and dance Trivia The original 1960 stage musical included 17 songs, the 1963 movie used 12 of the original tunes and added a new title song that appears at the very beginning and the very end, and the 1995 TV version included the 17 original songs, a re-arranged and re-written version of the title song written for the movie, plus three new songs that were added for this version and not included in any previous one. The director of the movie, George Sidney, was so very much infatuated with Ann-Margret and taken by her talents that he decided to highlight and showcase his new rising star by putting her front and center by changing her part from a minor character status of her singing featured in only two songs, as she is given a greatly expanded role as the main character in this adaptation of the story and she now sings in five of the songs in the film. As a result of this, the original stage musical's story and much of its dialogue was completely discarded and re-written as an entirely new script, while everyone else in the cast was reduced to supporting status and shunted to the background in addition to some of their characters' songs being dropped entirely. The movie's then newly-created but now legendary opening and closing sequences, where Ann-Margret is alone on-screen while standing against a bright blue background and singing the newly-written the title song "Bye Bye, Birdie" directly to the camera for the on-screen prelude at the very beginning as a prologue and reprise at the very end for an epilogue, are not a part of the story but they display her character arc development. In the first rendition, she is an immature, whining, and petulant little girl who has an unhealthy obsession with a star, and laments how dull her life will become without her un-ending adulation for Conrad Birdie. In the finale, she has changed into a beautiful grown woman who is now wiser and realizes her actual boyfriend is what's most important to her by moving past her teenage infatuation, since she wasted her time fangirling over some singer who could care less about her, and continuing with the rest of her life as she bids Conrad a defiant fond goodbye as he has now been enlisted into the army and ceases to exist to her. Dick Van Dyke and Paul Lynde, both veterans of the Broadway hit were displeased with the film version because they felt it had become too much of a vehicle for Ann-Margret. Van Dyke complained to his wife "They're making it a vehicle for Ann-Margret, and turning it into 'The Ann-Margret Show!'", while Lynde quipped "They should have retitled it 'Hello, Ann-Margret!', since they cut several of my and the other actors' best scenes and shot new ones for her so she could do her teenage-sex-bombshell act." Even though she didn't appear in the film, Susan Watson who created the role of Kim in the stage version later said "Anyone who likes the film clearly didn't see the show." Despite portraying the mother of Dick Van Dyke's character in the film, Maureen Stapleton is just six months older than Van Dyke. The TV movie version was a different, longer, and truer interpretation that was a much more faithful adaptation of the stage musical's basic storyline. Ed Sullivan was embarrassed by the Broadway production's choral hymn praising him and his weekly TV variety show as he was watching the play with his wife. He was quoted as saying "I only wanted the floor to open up and swallow us both." Despite this, he would later perform a life-imitates-art routine when he reprised the "One Last Kiss" segment for real when Gary Lewis, the lead singer of the band Gary Lewis & The Playboys, performed the song and kissed a fan shortly before his actual draft induction into the U.S. army as part of a publicity stunt. Jesse Pearson would appear in only one other film after this: Advance To The Rear, a military comedy with Glenn Ford, but he guest-starred in a few television comedy programs including McHale's Navy, The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Andy Griffith Show. The poet Rod McKuen who hired Pearson for voice work on his album The Sea Trilogy, wrote on his web site: "Jesse Pearson was a very talented man and deserved a much bigger and longer career than he had." An episode of Mad Men paid homage to the sequence of the title song by having an advertising agency create an advertisement for Patio, a sugar-free diet cola marketed as a soda alternative for diabetics by pitching their product with the intended target of young women who are trying to maintain their figures as a tool for staying slim, while an Ann-Margret wannabe imitates the "Bye Bye, Birdie" song and recreates exact frame-by-frame copy of the sequence to the film in the ad with "bye bye, Birdie" changed to "bye bye, sugar" to assert how their product says "bye-bye" to extra pounds and inches. Ann-Margret has said that when she and her husband Roger Smith saw this tribute, tears welled up in their eyes because it was so kind and loving.Category:Movies